Friends For The Journey

6.27.2008

I remember when I was a young hot shot cross-cultural church planter, who moved to a foreign country, learned the language, started a church, trained leadership and turned it over to them and left in less than two years. One guy, who was trying to plant a church in London, came up to me and asked me how I did it, and then started taking notes.

6-7 When things were going great
I crowed, “I’ve got it made.
I’m GOD’s favorite.
He made me king of the mountain.”

It didn’t take long for God to begin to humble me and teach me to trust him through the way of pain – in fact, it was shortly after the incident with my London friends notes that I entered into my first experience with clinical depression.

7. Then you looked the other way
and I fell to pieces.

In verses 8 through 10, the psalmist cries out to God for help. It is amazing how hard it often is for us to simply cry out to God and to ask him for help. For some strange reason, we want to resolve our own problems, we want to be self-sufficient. But pain and depression have a way of reducing our pride and bringing us to the helplessness of a child in which we simply cry out desperately to our Abba father for help. God is especially receptive to these prayers that represent a child-like heart-cry for help. He will often come running to our rescue.

2-3 GOD, my God, I yelled for help
and you put me together.
GOD, you pulled me out of the grave,
gave me another chance at life
when I was down-and-out.

When it seems that God turns his back on us and we start to fall to pieces, it is important to realize that it is only temporary. As the Psalmists observes, his anger is only for a moment, but his love lasts across a lifetime.

4-5. He gets angry once in a while, but across
a lifetime there is only love.

I could tell you some stories along these lines – we just had a major breakthrough yesterday in which God rescued us and probably made it possible for me to finish the Ph.D. rather than go to work as a High School teacher in order to get health insurance for Deb. God is continually rescuing us when we simply ask him for help. The only appropriate response is gratitude:

12. GOD, my God,
I can’t thank you enough.